The best business card you’ll ever have!

Business cards are still alive and well, a few have become digital, but in the business networking circles I move in, most people have a piece of card with their essential content details on to hand over.  But what do you do with all those pieces of cardboard when you get back to your desk?

You might add them to a spreadsheet, or just leave them lying around your desk for a while.  You might have a drawer full of them, or even a business card holder or a filing tray with them in.  But what makes you remember the individual who gave you the card?  It’s not the card (unless it was unusually quirky).

My mentor says that a book showcasing your expertise is the best way to attract new clients – and I agree that a book is a powerful way to help people to remember you.

Firstly, it sits on their bookshelf reminding them of you.  And it probably has a picture of you on the front or back to help jog their visual memory of you too.

Secondly, it positions you as an authority (it’s no coincidence that the word authority has ‘author’ in it).  Experts write books, you’ve established yourself in that category.

Thirdly, it’s a great marketing tool – at networking events, on social media, on your website and in your newsletter.  In fact, marketing your book and your company is a symbiotic relationship, they feed each other.

If you don’t have time to write your book …

There are other options:

• Take a couple of dozen of your blog entries, organise them under subject areas and edit them into shape.

o   Shortcut: Give them to an editor to do the hard work!

• Write your core areas of expertise down and talk to a voice recorder about each of them.  Transcribe them and you’ve got your chapters.

o   Shortcut: Send the voice recordings to a transcription service and the transcriptions to an editor.

• Get a professional writer to interview you on your specialist subject and then develop the resulting information into a book.  This will probably require more than one interview session, but will still take less time than actually writing the book yourself.
• If you’ve done presentations in the past and you have slideshows or notes, use these to develop the content.  Better still if you have video of your presentations, you’ve already got material to feed the book.

o   Shortcut: Give all this material to an editor and an outline of what you want the book to be about and let them do their thing.

Writing a book doesn’t necessarily require you to spend hours a day for months slaving over a hot keyboard.  If you love writing then by all means go for it, but if it’s not how you want to spend your time, get expert help.

Have you we’d all over your website?

The first time I heard this phrase was on a tele-seminar more than 20 years ago, so it’s not new – but it’s still the most common mistake people make.

Take a look at the websites of the people you network with – you’ll quickly spot which ones are professionally written, because they’ll be written with the reader in mind. 

Here are a couple of examples (with the names changed to protect the innocent!) and a better alternative:

Example 1

About us

‘Established in 2011, Supersonic Home Transformations, is a family run business with 30 years combined industry experience operation from a stunning showroom in Hamtown.

Our commitment to customers is delivering professional, affordable, creative solutions on every single project we create. This ethos has enabled us to expand our services throughout this county, that county and this region.’

This is the first content on the home page – so it’s not only about them, but it’s not the kind of message that a new reader is looking for.  They’re not interested in how the business is run or that they have a stunning showroom.  This is a more engaging message.

Transform your home

When your home needs a facelift or your family is expanding and you need to upgrade your facilities, why don’t you come and talk to us?

Pick our brains for ideas and suggestions drawn from our many years of experience.  And you can rely on getting professional, affordable and creative solutions designed specifically for your home.

Book your phone chat right away or pop into our showroom at [location].

Example 2

Est 1895 Superb Solicitors is a modern law firm with traditional values!

Superb Solicitors based in Moretown and established since 1895 is a dynamic law firm with a professional and practical approach to dealing with business and personal legal affairs.

Our Moretown based solicitors have the depth and breadth of legal knowledge in our specialist areas to meet all your legal requirements.

We are confident in our approach and the commercial edge that our advice will give. We provide a unique and compelling legal service to our clients.

We are very pleased to announce that we recently merged with Legal Law Solicitors in Neartown, specialists in employment law and litigation and are now able to offer our clients an even more comprehensive service.  Whether you are looking for solicitors in Moretown, Solicitors in Neartown or further afield we are ideally placed to provide you with a professional service.

While this firm do have all their divisions at the top of their home page, this is the first content.  It’s all about them and is clearly written for SEO.  In addition, there is a typo and inconsistencies in capitalisation (yes, I’m pedantic!)

The four paragraphs start with the company name, ‘our’ and ‘we’.  Some of it almost sounds boastful, rather than confidently professional.  There’s a lot of information that may not be useful to someone who has just arrived on the website. 

Practical, professional and personal …

Visiting a solicitor is not a step you take without thought.  Whether you’re looking for legal support for personal issues or you want professional advice for your business, we have dedicated professionals in each of our specialist areas.

You’ll find a sympathetic and knowledgeable legal professional ready to give you the advice and support you need. 

There are thousands of websites that suffer from the same problem – and it’s all a matter of positioning.  Check your own site and see if you could reposition your message to be more appealing to your reader.

Making an impression

You’ve probably heard the quotation ‘You never get a second chance to make a first impression’.  It’s a clever quote, but it’s also very true.  If that first impression is less than great, you’ll have to work quite hard to overcome that.

When you’re planning to stand in front of a group and make a presentation, it’s not just about how they see you, but how they see whatever the presentation is about.

So, you want to impress people with your presentation – what’s the secret?

Well, there isn’t just one – there are a few! 

Planning is critical

Start with the end in mind – what do you want your audience to think or do when your presentation is finished?  Even more important, what do the people in your audience want to get from your presentation?

Once you have those two key pieces of information you can ensure that everything in your presentation takes your audience to the destination they want, while achieving your own goal too.

When you know where you’re going then you can plan the steps that will take you there.

Be ruthless

If you are enthusiastic about your subject (and you shouldn’t be making a presentation on it if you aren’t), it’s easy to get carried away and swamp your audience with too much information.

I find it useful to mindmap my plan so I can see the key points that take me to the conclusion and then choose carefully how much information on each one of those I need to include.  When you’re working with a skeleton plan like this you are likely to be much more objective than if you work in a linear way.

For every fact, diagram, quotation, statistic, case study and anecdote ask yourself ‘will this help my audience to make the decision I want them to?’  If the answer is ‘yes’, include it.  If it’s ‘no’ then leave it out – no matter how good the story is!  If it’s ‘maybe’, it’s probably a ‘no’, but you like that piece of information and want to include it!

Visual aids

For most people ‘visual aids’ equals a slide presentation.  However, don’t forget that visual aids can be objects that help to make your point – be creative, it will help to make your presentation memorable.

When it comes to slides – remember that they are VISUAL aids, not verbal aids.  Many people use their slides as their notes – and this just results in cluttered slides that are very forgettable.  The rule of thumb for slides is to only use them to demonstrate something that is highly visual, or for numbers.  But don’t put ALL the numbers on them, just the key figures – so the contrast between last year and this year, not every month in between.  If you have a lot of data that your audience need, create handouts – but only give them out at the end, you don’t want people reading their handouts (or your slides) instead of listening to you.

Avoid whizzy graphics, they tend to be more irritating than impressive!

If you’re using video, ensure that it’s short and powerful, nobody wants to watch a boring video that goes on for a few minutes.  That’s the quickest way to disengage your audience.

Know your stuff

You shouldn’t be doing the presentation if you don’t.  However, it’s a good idea to learn your opening, to grab your audience’s attention and to avoid the memory wipe that can happen if you’re very nervous.

While you can use notes to keep you on track, don’t read them.  A few index cards with your bullet points on them are a good way to stay on track.  Fasten them together to ensure they don’t get out of order – one of those treasury tags (a short cord with a metal T-bar on each end) works well. 

Also learn your close – it’s important.  Don’t simply stop and say ‘That’s it, thank you for listening’.  What is the big takeaway you want people to have?  A powerful finish will help people to remember you and your presentation.